Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) (29 page)

“So the British have rockets here
as well,” he said, stating the obvious. “How are they spotting us?”

“Perhaps just as we surmised in
the Atlantic,” said Adler. “They must have a submarine close by to send the
general coordinates of our fleet.”

“But the accuracy of these
attacks is uncanny,” said Lütjens. “Did you see how that second rocket avoided
the destroyer screen? It was as if the damn thing had eyes!”

“Yes,” said Adler. “We would have
taken a hit like that on the
Graf Zeppelin
if our destroyer had not been
right alongside at that moment.”

“How do we beat a weapon like
this?” Lütjens shook his head, clearly impressed, but Adler stood taller, his
hands clasped behind his back.

“They must be firing from just
over the horizon, Admiral. We have speed—let’s use it! Look, the French heavy
ships are still in formation. They will control those fires and I am willing to
bet they are not seriously harmed. What we do now is charge with the heavy
cavalry, sir. How many of these rockets can the enemy have? We may take hits,
but they cannot sink us all before we get them under our guns. Then we settle
the matter the old fashioned way.”

Even as Adler finished they saw
another thin contrail in the sky, this time a SAM fired to take down the
seaplane spotter that had just launched from the
Normandie
minutes
before. It exploded with the unerring hit, sending murmurs through the bridge
crew that prompted Lütjens to turn and give a stiff rebuke to his men.

“We are not here to ooh and ahh
at the British fireworks! We are here to find and crush them, and that is
exactly what we will do!” Then to Adler he said: “Signal Admiral Laborde. If
their ship can still make way, I advise we increase to full battle speed and
sail right down that heading.” He pointed a gloved finger at the smoke trail
low on the sea from that second rocket strike.

“Shall I signal the
Goeben
to launch
Stukas?”
Adler waited on the Admiral’s order.

“Not just yet, he said. The
French are launching more seaplanes. Let’s see how they do before we give the
British more targets for these rockets. Now… helmsman, all ahead full!”

* * *

Aboard
Argos Fire
MacRae
was leaning over the radar map with Mister Healey. He had seen the firing
tracks of his first two missiles, and they waited briefly, looking for any
diminishment of speed in the two contacts that were hit. Five minutes later it
was clear that the enemy was undeterred. Smaller, faster contacts were
increasing speed. They saw two groups of five, which appeared to be destroyer
squadrons increasing to nearly 36 knots. Many ships were also now launching
seaplanes, as these were carried even down to the light cruiser class in the
French Navy. They saw six more planes aloft and fanning out ahead of the fleet.

“Look at that,” said MacRae. “Do
we want to commit another six
Vipers
against seaplanes?” He looked at
Morgan now.

“Twenty minutes and they break
our horizon in any case. If you want my advice, I’d begin retiring on the
British Fleet now and try to stay ahead of those bastards. Save your missiles.
It’s only a matter of time until they make contact with us.”

MacRae agreed, and ordered the
ship to come about to a heading that would take him west of the British
squadron. No sense leading those brigands any other place, he thought.

“Well, our opening salvo doesn’t
seem to have made much of an impression.” Gordon looked Elena’s way, but she
stood in icy silence, watching the operations but saying nothing. Executive Officer
Dean was quick enough to realize what had happened. Miss Fairchild had ordered
the Captain to conserve ammunition, which was understandable. He had looked at
the results of the initial missile strikes and realized the difficulties.

“If I may, sir.” He said,
drifting to MacRae’s side. “We might make better use of our SSMs if we target
their lighter class ships. The core of their fleet is most likely well armored
battleships. Some of these ships have belt armor exceeding ten inches thick. Our
missiles weren’t built to penetrate that, but against their cruisers and
destroyers we’ll likely get a mission kill with every hit. It’s either that or
we’ll have to program every missile for popup maneuver and try to hit the
superstructure, but even the conning towers of the heavier ships would be very
well protected. We’ll shake them up and start a fire, but going after the
escorts is our best bet. It might winnow down the odds a bit.”

“Aye,” said MacRae. “Let’s see
what we can do. One more missile, Mister Dean. You make the target selection.”

Dean huddled with Healey to get
his best advice and then they decided to fire at what looked to be an escort
cruiser. It was moving out in front of two other ships, and making just over 30
knots. They did not know it at the time, but they were fingering the light
cruiser
La Galissonniere
, lead ship in a class of three that formed the 3rd
Cruiser Division of the High Seas Fleet at Toulon. The missile was away, and it
would do considerably more harm when it struck. Yet even for a light cruiser,
La
Galissonniere
was protected with side armor exceeding 100mm, and 95mm on
the conning tower where the blow fell. The missile had sufficient kinetic
impact to blast through, but just barely, and the resulting fire was very bad
on this smaller ship of just over 9100 tons full load. The bridge was put out
of action by the smoke and flames, but the message got passed aft and the
engines reduced speed. One brave soul stayed with the helm and brought the ship
around, turning about and seeking safety behind the fleet to try and fight the
fire. Dean had been correct. The fires were bad enough to take the ship out of
the fight, a mission kill if not an outright sinking.

“That’s a little better,” said
MacRae when they saw th eship turn on radar. “I’ll want those X-3s in the air
at once, Mister Dean. They are to look for light destroyer class vessels and
put their
Sea Skuas
to good use. The British will have enough on their
hands without having to worry about the enemy torpedo runs.”

As the first helo lifted off
Morgan found MacRae and spoke quietly. “This isn’t looking good, Gordie. When
those big fellows out there catch up to the
Queen Elizabeth
…”

“I understand,” said MacRae. “But
we’ll do what we can.”

* * *

“Let’s
move Tommy,” said
Lieutenant Ryan as he strapped himself into his X-3 helicopter. His co-pilot,
Tom Wicks was in and settled in his seat in no time, and the props were turning
on the sleek new bird, a hybrid craft that would ascend like a helo and then
use a pair of turbo props to achieve speeds well over 470KPH, nearly as fast as
fighters of that day. It was swift, agile, and today it would have four
Sea
Skua
missiles aboard, two on each outer pylon. It could also carry
Hellfires
,
Hydra-70
rocket pods, and had a lethal chain gun in the nose. The
Sea
Skuas
would take up all the room on the pylons, leaving only two points on
the outer edge for a pair of ATAS Air-to-Air
Stingers
for defense against
planes. But the chopper’s best move would be its speed, aerodynamic agility and
stealth.

“Fast and low, Tommy,” said Ryan.
“That’s the recipe here. I’ll want both helos to go in tandem. There’s
something on the wind today, and we’re out to give them a good sting.”

That last attack order he had
received in the Caspian had been sheer madness when they had flown into the
teeth of the Russian 847th Coastal Air Defense battery, equipped with the
Triumf S-400, the same deadly long range spear that
Kirov
used against
enemy aircraft. His wing mate, Matt Wilson, had gotten the wrong end of one of
those, and when Ryan saw his intended target, a nice big fat floating power
plant, simply vanish from his radar screen, he figured the Russians had some
slick new jammer to spoof his electronics. Either way, it added up to a quick
abort. That decision, and a little luck, was the only reason he and Tom Wicks
were still alive that day. But this time things would be different.

This time there would be no enemy
radar to paint them red, and no deadly volley of S-400 SAMs to confront. They
would need no ECM jamming, only a steady hand on the stick and a good eye on
the radar for target data. That was Tom Hicks’ job, and once they were inbound
he saw a formation of five contacts soon enough.

“Five ducks up ahead, Lieutenant,
and I don’t think they see us. At least they’re not shooting at us yet!”

“See us or not, we’re on their
horizon now. But remember, Tommy, these fellows don’t have any missiles. This
is World War
Two,
me boyo, and
we’ve
got the thunder this time
out. Let’s not fool around. Put two missiles on each ship.”

“My pleasure!” Wicks tapped out
his targets and the missiles were away, not the lightning fast supersonic darts
that the ships would fire, but a decent high subsonic speed missile that could
range out 25 kilometers, well beyond any danger of enemy flak. They would
approach low, rise as they neared the target to acquire it with radar, and then
bore in with a semi-armor piercing warhead that was enough to penetrate the
thin skin of a destroyer. Once through the hull, the small 28kg high explosive
warhead was still enough to do some serious damage.

Tempete
and
Tornade
were the two ships to feel the X-3’s bite. One missile blasted the
superstructure, and the second pierced the hull of the 1300 ton destroyer
Tornade
.
Blast, shrapnel, smoke and fire were soon enveloping the small ships, and the
second X-3 scored four more hits on two others in the formation. In one hot
minute the X-3s had bludgeoned the destroyer flotilla,
Mistral
and
Orage
faring little better than Ryan’s targets.

“Well that’s that!” said Ryan
with a smile. “Talk about an unanswered punch. They don’t know what hit them!
Let’s use those
Stingers
to take out a few spotter planes and be done
with this.” He pulled to get altitude, the other X-3 following smartly, but
once they climbed, the radar was alive with new contacts.

“Blessed Savior,” said Ryan,
staring out the wind screen when they got close enough to see the enemy fleet.
“I told you there was trouble on the wind, Tommy. No wonder they wanted us out
here. There must be twenty ships, and not this lot that we’ve been poking at.
Look at the size of that big fellow! Let’s get back to the
Argos Fire.”

“Aye,” said Wicks as the X-3 banked
for home. The words of Kipling were suddenly on his lips, and he gave Ryan a
smile as they sped away. “
While it's Tommy this,
an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind," But it's "Please to
walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind…”

Part IX

Strange
Bedfellows

“This is no fish, but an
islander, that hath lately suffered by a thunder-bolt. Alas, the storm is come
again! My best way is to creep
under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: misery
acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. I will here shroud till the
dregs of the storm be past.”

―
Shakespeare
:
The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 2

Chapter 25

Karpov
had a new airship. He had ordered its construction shortly
after he took command of the Siberian Air Corps, and now it was finally ready
to join the fleet, larger and more powerful than any other Zeppelin in Siberia,
if not the world. With airships named for every major city of note, he decided
to christen this one with a regional name, derived from the river valley where
the ship’s duralumin metal frame had been mined and forged, in the cold,
inaccessible north. So it was that
Tunguska
joined the fleet in late January
of 1941, with a full 225,000 cubic meter volume, and the best recoilless guns
and most advanced radars that Siberian industries could produce.

Tunguska
was 250 meters in length, larger than any other airship in
the Orenburg fleet, and bigger than the
Narva
in Soviet Russia by a full
ten meters. It was even slightly larger than the mighty German Zeppelin
Hindenburg
that had been destroyed in a tragic fire that ignited its hydrogen lifting gas
in 1937 before the war. To avoid that, this airship would use the rare helium
gas, which had been mined from now classified sources within Siberia, and
conserved to support the fleet. By reaching those metrics in her design,
Tunguska
would rightfully claim the title as the largest aircraft ever to be built and
fly on the earth, three times the length of the biggest jumbo jets of modern
times.

With
all that lifting capacity the ship was endowed with a suite of 24 recoilless
rifles, six more than Volkov’s flagship
Orenburg
, and the advantage was
all in the bigger 105mm rifles on the main gondola. Better yet, there were secret
racks of new rocket designs that Karpov had initiated a year ago for this
project. They were based on the RS-82mm and RS-132mm rockets that had been in
development as early as 1920 by the Soviets, but Karpov had used the
information he commanded in his service jacket computer to modify them, and
give them much better aerodynamic performance. They were unguided, and still
too inaccurate to use against small ground targets, which was the reason the
Russians abandoned them as a potential tank killer, and moved to the more
promising PTAB bomblets instead. But Karpov believed they would still be useful
as an area saturation weapon, like the dread Katyusha rocket that appeared in
the Soviet arsenal, though that was not his primary use for the weapon.